On Friday afternoon, Kenseth was the surprise pole winner for Saturday's Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. On Friday night, he completed the daily double with a victory in the Diamond Hill Plywood 200 at the 1.366-mile egg-shaped track, after misfortune struck the dominant car of Kyle Busch in the closing circuits.
Touring the 1.366-mile egg-shaped circuit in 27.394 seconds , Matt Kenseth won the pole for Saturday night's Southern 500, edging Jeff Gordon by a tenth of a second. Kenseth inherited the lead when Busch was forced to pit under yellow with a cut right-rear tire and won the race under the record-tying 10th caution period of the night, when Morgan Shepherd spun moments after a restart for a green-white-checkered-flag finish that took the race six laps beyond its scheduled 147 laps.
The victory was Kenseth's first of the season, his third at Darlington and his 25th in the series, fifth-best of all time. Jason Leffler came home second, followed by Carl Edwards and rookie Erik Darnell, who posted his first top-five finish in his third start in the series. Fellow rookie Justin Allgaier ran fifth.
